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Malsieve
Pronounced Mal-See-Vay. He is the three bodied god of Poison and Cunning, and seems to hold an affinity with roots and plants. Malsieve rarely seeks the company of the rest of the Pantheon of Kor, preferring isolation among his labyrinthine catacombs under his web-spun domain among the southern swamps of Kor, where he lays in repose, wandering the lands in thought, and observing. Vain and resentful, Malsieve loves to take new titles to himself. Malsieve takes it upon himself to act as a balancing force in the world, doling out trials that those affected might strengthen themselves in the end. The Iskari fashioned for Malsieve by Slejk pulses and swirls with green, black, and gray light. Early Works Early Works In the early creation days of Kor, Malsieve provided blessings to the three races: The Naga were given fangs and blessed with Kor's most potent toxin to ease their underwater hunting. The Dwarves were blessed with cunning to supplement their ambitious ways, that they might produce marvels. Malsieve's third mind silently communicated to the whole of the Cervitaur race, planting a great secret within their racial subconscious. What that secret might be is unknown. Malsieve then fashioned his lair among the swamps of the Southern slopes of Kor's Mountain. Swamp plants grew to tremdendous size, while twisting roots tore at the earth to form a vast labyrinth of catacombs over which rests a single, humble house for receiving any special visitors that Malsieve allows within his abode. Malsieve noticed the silent and patient spiders using their cunning to lay traps for their prey which allowed them to consume victims much larger than themselves. The God of Poison and Cunning took the spider as his sigil and favored animal, bestowing the blessings of venom on their kind. Three of these spiders were raised to enormous size, and set to watch over the swamps, and encase them in their powerful webbing. Tension Observing the Folk of Stone in thought form, Malsieve witnessed the Goddess of Knowledge imbuing the newborn Algen with a portion of her divine essence. This act repulsed Malsieve to his very core; that the embodiment of Knowledge would be so unwise as to diminish her very being, while raising one of the mortal races above the others appeared to fly in the face of any notion of Kor's balance. Rather than strike Algen down, Malsieve bestowed curses on Kor that would limit each race's abilities, while at the same time the curses would ideally encourage the races to rely on each other to make up for their lack. For the Cervitaurs, the curse would take the form of many plant species becoming poisonous, or having other side effects. Many of the heretofore harmless insects and animals would be given toxic bites and stings to trouble the unwary. The underground lands of the Dwarves were seeded with pockets of poisonous vapors, and strong acids in order to limit the Folk of Stone's population. Several minerals become toxic or radioactive as well, no longer to be casually enjoyed for their sheen and luster. The most controversial curse came to the Naga when Malsieve cursed the Serpent Folk's gills, making the air above the waves unbreathable to them in order to limit their unrestricted freedom of travel. The Water Goddess Liria took great offense to the flaunting of her command that the Naga balance their time above and below water. Malsieve deigned to speak with Liria as she stood outside his webbed home, and hinted at the reason for his ire. Liria ignored Malsieve's hints that the dwarves might be employed by the Naga to fashion a method for them to breathe on land once more, and instead offered them the choice individually to renounce their venom, and once more be able to live on the land, or to keep Malsieve's blessing and be confined below the waves. Thus was the split between the Naga born. When Kaliris of Chaos afflicted the Cervitaurs and their land with a withering plague, many of the Forest Folk believed their suffering to be from Malsieve. Unwilling to provide direct aid to the Cervitaurs, Malsieve counseled them to seek their own salvation in the gifts of nature.